I Am

[Blueberry]

It's really healing to be taken care of by others especially when it isn't something you've had in your life. I think it makes total sense to want someone to take care of you. I hope you find that, and that in the meantime you can take care of the younger parts of yourself a bit too so they don't keep getting abandoned. I wish you had more care in your life. 

 

It's really healing to be taken care of by others especially when it isn't something you've had in your life. I think it makes total sense to want someone to take care of you. I hope you find that

Just reiterating this because for me looking after younger BBs is really strenuous and maybe it's similar for you with your Younger ones, so I'd like to wish you someone to take care of you (even if it's unrealistic, or not Adult or something.)
 

[Blueberry]

... I think a bigger problem is that ever since the floods I'm struggling to feel that anything is worth doing. And I suppose if there's anything I want someone else to do for me, it's TAKE CARE OF ME. I never had much of that and I guess I never will. I've been working on learning to do it for myself for YEARS. I can do it in bursts but I've never managed to sustain it. I've always tried again, started again. But now I think I'm getting to be just too tired.

I really resonate (except for the floods part, obv.). Maybe helps to not feel quite alone, idk. 

[Chart]

Bach, Everyone has a limit. Everyone has a breaking point. Too much is too much. When we can't any more, we just can't. Please forgive yourself. Your energy will return, and much faster if your allow yourself to listen, process and integrate these emotions of powerlessness and need of care. All these feelings are 100% valid.

I believe there is nothing more difficult to live with and overcome than developmental trauma. Please cut yourself some slack. You are figuratively and LITERALLY inundated with emotion and water.

Is it a coincidence that the Buddhists and many other traditions equate emotions to water? I don't think so. You are trying to stay afloat... literally. And it's hard. I think you're doing it. You ARE doing it. The water will go down, the emotions will calm. I like very much the analogy: try to see yourself through our eyes. Trauma falsifies our self perception with shame, powerlessness and invalidation. This is where your friends on the forum come in with a little boat and supply big fresh towels. You absolutely deserve what you never got as a child. We know what you are feeling and we love you.
 

[Bach]

I've been listening to some positive self-talk recordings lately in a desperate attempt to get something good going on in this brain of mine.  On the one hand, I'm highly sceptical, but on the other, many years ago I had some small success doing some positive self-talk on my own after reading an article about neuroplasticity and the possibility of "rewiring" the brain.  Although the efforts I made back then at eradicating the negative inner monologue I've laboured under all my life didn't really "take", I did get something out of it.  Mostly, it was good in small situational ways, like coping with nervousness about a medical test or a social event.  I still do that kind of self-talk, but anything intended to change the bigger picture of how I think about myself and my life took an excruciating amount of mental effort to keep up.  It was too easy to get tired and discouraged, and too hard to ward off my negative thought patterns fighting back.  But I still find the logic behind the idea of reprogramming my internal programming to be sound.  So I'm trying this.  I came across an app with some recordings that don't annoy me too much, and the instructions are to play the recordings in the background while doing other things, rather than to listen consciously to what's being said, which is also appealing because if I'm not consciously listening, maybe I won't argue with it.  And maybe it will be more believable coming from an outside voice.  It's worth a try, anyway, because I can't with this "I can't" anymore!

[Bach]

I went to a wedding with My Person yesterday.  It was overwhelming for many reasons.  It was a wedding for a couple that My Person knows mostly from work stuff, but who I met and liked last year when we had them over for a barbecue.  I was dreading going because I have negative feelings about weddings in general, and I don't like big social gatherings especially when I don't know anyone else who was going to be there, but I felt so honored to have been included that I really did want to make the effort and go.  And I did, successfully, and I'm glad I did.  I feel good about it, and feel that I nurtured a worthwhile relationship by making the effort, but what I don't like is how much it takes out of me, and how following that kind of effort I always fall down on my self-care.

[Bach]

UGH.

I wish I could still WRITE.

[Chart]

...but what I don't like is how much it takes out of me, and how following that kind of effort I always fall down on my self-care.

Well done for going! But yes, big social events can be stressful and triggering. I'm the same way. But you did it and for all your the good reasons.
After it's normal to feel worn out. These things cost us more in terms of our energy. Blueberry posted a good video about trauma and energy.
https://youtu.be/7A6hfAWjZ3c?feature=shared
So if were drained, self care gets especially difficult. Could you give yourself a couple of days off from your normal routine with the promise of getting back to it on Monday or Tuesday?
 

[Bach]

So today my mother sent me a text message about the death of Pete Rose (we are both baseball fans, and the majority of the few fond memories I have of her involve baseball).  I sent her a reply in kind that cited a memory I have from the time that Pete Rose's big scandal was going on.  In retrospect, I realise that my text implicitly asked her to be interested in and curious about my life, and that I was hoping she would continue with that conversation.  I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed that her reply showed no interest, instead telling me about having to file her taxes.  But I am.

I've been feeling a lot lately that the people in my life aren't really interested in me.  I'm sure that's true of my mother, because it always has been.  But I'm pretty sure that with the other people in my life, it's me and not them.  Everything going on inside me lately is so painful.  So there's almost nothing to me these days other than dissociation and masking.  I get occasional fleeting flashes of enjoyment or hope, which I suppose should give me faith that those things are still possible, but lately I fear that nothing will ever really be good again.

[Armee]

 

[sanmagic7]

i'm truly sorry your M didn't make an effort to be interested in keeping that conversation going, to pay some attention to you (by the by, also a big baseball fan, saw pete rose play, he was something else! on the field), and for the disappointment that followed.  it reminded me of something my T told me at the time i had an interchange w/ my ex, and his response was disappointing as well.

i asked my T if i should respond, she just said that to do so would run the risk of getting disappointed again.  honestly, bach, altho the idea of getting what we need from such people dies hard, it really is one disappointment after another, no matter what or how hard we try.  i hope you know this isn't you, it's her.  her limited worldview doesn't have room for other people.

very glad the wedding went well for you.  that's good news.  i hope you have more of that in the future.  love and hugs

[Bach]

Thank you for the responses, friends.  It has gotten really hard for me to reply directly to what people post or even to write at all, but I'm trying not to let that stop me. So to everyone who posts to me, please know that I read, take seriously and deeply appreciate everything you offer me. 

Lately I've had horrible intrusive thoughts about killing myself.  I am angry and resentful of these thoughts.  They are lies.  I feel bad, and I'm tired of feeling bad, and I sometimes wish that I did not have to go on living, but I DO have to, for many reasons, and it is idiotic and annoying to have to hear the persistent voice in my head that says "I'm going to kill myself.  I want to die.  I wish I was dead.  Pretty soon, I'm going to kill myself" etc.  I've lived with those kinds of thoughts on and off all my life.  I had a good stretch of years in the 2010s in which I hardly ever had those thoughts, and when I did, it was only a day here and there with only a thought here and there, not a prolonged onslaught for days on end with few moments of relief.  I thought I had healed enough that this wouldn't happen anymore.  I'm confused and furious that it is happening.  Depression is one thing, this is something else.

I think I've probably written about this before.

[Armee]

When this happens to me (see my recent post under SI section) they seem very very very much like flashbacks more than an active desire. It sounds like maybe the same for you, possibly. I know I have no interest in dying, but depending on whether I am having flashback type issues (emotional or other) those thoughts show up...I need to die. Please die me. Please kill me. And even more frightening what happened a couple nights ago. But I'm not suicidal and I don't think you are either. It is annoying but also it's a cry for help from younger parts of us showing us what they went through. I don't know if that's helpful. It's how I have been experiencing it and thinking about it.

I am so sorry tho that you are hurting so much for so long. 😢

[Hope67]

Hi Bach,
I don't think I've got any helpful words available to me (wish I did!) but I do want to send you a supportive and heartfelt hug 
Hope

[Bach]

Hope 

Armee, what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, especially because in the past few days I've been having waves of feeling like I'm a helpless child and just want someone to take care of me.  I don't really know very much about how to work with parts.  I suppose I should try to read up on that.  Stuff like that is really hard for me to learn about and process on my own.  I wish I had loads of money that I could spend on teachers and practitioners.

There's very much a child present right now.  If only I knew what to do to take care of her!

[Armee]

Yeah it really helps to have help working with those young parts. But when you can even just asking what she wants you to know or what she needs and then imagining giving her a little empathy is a good place to start. Easier said than done I very much agree.